One Swallow Does Not Make a Summer, Several Swallows Do Make Nests

Nesting swallows on our balcony

That means, several of these little birds have begun building a nest in one of the upper corners of the loggia. I personally had never seen one up close until recently, but their building activity is so regular that I’ve been able to watch them fly in and out every morning from just behind the glass door. I even captured some of the flying “events” in slow motion. Here’s the video (yes, I tried youtube’s add-audio-track-feature …):

A few things that I didn’t know so far (but have seen in the meantime):

Swallows seem to build several nests at the same time within a certain distance from each other.

Several birds work on one nest at the same time.

The nests I know of or have seen them fly to are oriented towards sunrise.

I have also learnt, by reading up on swallows, that they refit and reuse nests from previous years. Plus: they and also their nests are protected by law. Well, glad to hear it. We try to leave them alone as much as possible out there.

Swallows stunt-flying in pictures

During my video-capturing attempts, I got some reasonable footage and was able to get a few nice stills from the video. I am amazed at the swallows’ maneuvering abilities and the most by their sheer speed. Considering this, the fact alone that they feed by catching insects in mid-flight is just spectacular for me.

Here are a few of the stills. I’ll post more later, when I catch, see, or learn something new.

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